We learn language by copying people. That’s why people say things like ‘short shrift’ without knowing what it means.
Unless you are saying that copying Americans is bad because they are Americans..? Wouldn’t that make you a bit of a xenophobe?
Molgrips, to paraphrase from the previous thread:
I’ve nothing against Americans or American English, but the replacement of perfectly good, commonly used words and phrases by Americanisms is not evolution.
I love the way British English continues with it’s natural evolution – immigration and assimilation have enriched our language immeasurably and hopefully will continue to do so.
However, there is simply no excuse for our media to promote Americanisms where a perfectly satisfactory British English equivalent is in common usage.
It’s cultural vandalism and should be treated with laughter, ridicule and contempt.
Both my stepdaughters talk like they’re in an episode of ‘Friends’.
I blame their mother for not beating it out of them when she had the chance and I also blame the media for it’s wholesale acceptance and promotion of American Culture in preference to our own.
I like British English, with all it’s appropriations, mistakes and contradictions.
I don’t like the way that English is being homogenised.
It leaves us poorer as a society.